The ivory bowls from the Megiddo VIIA ivory cache

Thanks to the invitation to give the Annual David Kipper Lecture at the Oriental Institute, I had a chance to examine several of the various items from the well-known ivory collection from the Palace of Megiddo, Stratum VIIA, which was excavated by the OI Megiddo Expedition years ago and is now kept in the OI museum. Among the ivory collection are several bowls that are very similar to the bowl that we found at Safi in the 2013 season. Interestingly, Megiddo VIIA is most probably dated to the late 12th cent., and some of the objects from the ivory collection might even be from the 14th cent BCE, while the Safi bowl was found in what is most likely a 10th cent. BCE context! This means that the Safi bowl was “curated” for centuries!
In any case, I was able to inspect several of the bowls from the Megiddo collection (thanks to Jack Green and the OI Museum staff), and they definitely are very similar – but not identical – to the Safi bowl!